Pain au Levain: Three Stages of Rising
by Rorke's Drift
Summary: ... or "Three (and a Half) Times Eliot Spencer Walked into Toby's Kitchen". Because I wanted to read it, and it didn't seem like anyone had written it yet :). A little bit of backstory (and side story) playing off what we were given in The French Connection Job.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's note: As usual, I own nothing and no money is being made. All characters are even being returned to their boxes in surprisingly good condition this time. _

_So, this one is a bit of an experiment...I'm not sure what I think of how it turned out, so constructive criticism is even more than usually welcome! And if you happen to notice typos or places where there is an unintentional switch in tenses that I missed during editing, those are fair game for comment: I'll go in and correct them if the story is not yet marked as complete...after that I probably won't, in case that triggers alerts for new updates (that would just be cruel to anyone following it!). I also reserve the right to respectfully disagree on whether the errors pointed out are indeed errors - some will be, but others may simply be transatlantic differences in spelling or word usage. _

_That being said, all aboard the fun train for the latest ride: I hope you enjoy it!_

* * *

Eliot Spencer to Nathan Ford (The French Connection Job):

_"Yeah. Anyway, I met Toby. We were reconning this restaurant in Belgium. And I should have closed him out. I should have been in and out in under 90 seconds. But I ended up talking to him for three hours. He showed me that I could use my knife to create instead of destroy. I stuck around for a couple of months. He taught me everything there was about the art of food, and I... He's one of the guys that kept me from falling all the way down. So now, I'm asking the other guy to understand why I'm gonna help him."_

* * *

The first time Toby Heath sees Eliot Spencer walk into his kitchen, he knows there are about ten seconds separating him from an untimely meeting with his Maker if he can't come up with a compelling reason for delay. A block of high quality, recently-sharpened chef's knives sits just inches from his right hand, there is a cleaver hanging nearby, and a dozen more kitchen implements that would make adequate weapons lie within reach from almost any point in the kitchen, but Toby doesn't consider fighting. Even when one of the two balaclava-ed, black-clad men continues straight through the kitchen into the empty front of the restaurant, technically doubling his chances, the small part of Toby's brain that isn't panicking recognises the futility of any such action. The remaining man is muscled like a hunting cat, a tightly coiled mass of violence stalking silently across the kitchen towards Toby, fingers already reaching for the fighting knife snugged into a belt-sheath at the hip. Toby is a reasonably fit man in his prime, but he knows he is no match for this man – nor for the emotionless assessment he sees passing through the eyes fixed on him. Toby isn't a victim or a target, not even collateral damage; he is an obstacle about to be efficiently removed from the path.

* * *

Toby knows those eyes. Well, not the particular pair facing him now: he is pretty sure he would remember any previous encounters with trained assassins...or not be alive to worry about remembering them. But Toby has always been an idealist and a dreamer, and, in his youth, convinced he could heal humanity's self-inflicted wounds and save it from itself.

-000-

He first saw those eyes when he was fresh out of college and working as a counsellor at an inner-city school in Los Angeles. It was the 1970s and neighbourhood after neighbourhood was being lost to the street gangs. He watched teenagers – kids – being forced to choose gang membership and survival over the childhood lessons of _thou shalt not kill_, over and over until it was no longer a conscious choice, let alone a choice of conscience. He faced his first gun, and his first gunshot, at the hands of a kid he passed in the school hallways every day. Toby survived. The kid, who ran when he missed, was found dead two days later.

He saw the eyes again when he laid down his Vietnam protest placards and volunteered with a group offering counselling to returning soldiers – men who hadn't had a choice about going, and had found themselves committing unspeakable acts, either under orders or to protect themselves or the men they served with. Toby had done the research and the training he was offered on "Post-Vietnam Syndrome", and he genuinely wanted to help these men pick up the fabric of wholesome, normal lives. But faced with the eyes that catalogued his every expression and movement but didn't seem to register him as a living being let alone human, he was at a loss. The toolkit he had been given was missing the critical wrench. He kept showing up because quitting would be admitting failure, and there was still enough shine left on his idealism to rebel against that. And, finally, Toby had been handed his wrench, in a manner and at a moment when he was least expecting it. He was meeting with a new referral to the volunteer group, and the man had spent their hour relentlessly detailing every life, or group of lives, he had taken. Toby was shaken. He had grown used to the men who deflected or joked about the carnage they had witnessed or inflicted; the ones who refused to admit, even to themselves, it had ever happened; even the men who just stared blankly through him without any sign of recognition. But this cold objectification left him momentarily speechless.

"Do you even realise you're talking about human beings?" Toby blurted out. "How can you talk about – think about – people like that? Like they're nothing more than a chair in the corner or a..a box of cereal on the shelf?"

He shut his mouth abruptly as his brain caught up with his mouth and reminded him that he knew better than to react with such anger and disgust. He expected rage in response and had to swallow harder against his fear than he ever had when staring down the barrel of a gun as the hands resting on the table between them tightened into white-knuckled fists. He didn't expect the first emotion to cross the eyes staring into his own to be a soul-devouring despair.

"How else," the man asked, voice as dispassionate as before, "am I supposed to keep believing in my own humanity?"

Toby felt a wave of compassion rising within him as the quiet question recast some of the more disturbing behaviours he had witnessed from signs of humanity lost into last-ditch attempts to hold onto its vestiges.

"I don't know," he admitted, leaning forward. "What makes you feel human?"

-000-

It became a question Toby asked countless times in the years that followed. He asked it of soldiers for as long as the volunteer programme continued. He asked it of men and women convicted of violent crimes when he went back to school for a graduate degree in psychology and made this the focus of his masters thesis. He asked it sometimes of his family and friends, or of the person standing next to him in line in the grocery store, and he asked it of every person he met in the refugee camps when he worked for the United Nations Human Rights Commission after graduating. Somewhere along the line it got shortened to 'What makes you feel?', and he got a variety of answers: a song, a fight, a poem, a girl, a boy, a drug, a thunderstorm, a rollercoaster; building something, planting something; having something to plan, somewhere to go, someone to talk to. These became the answers he hoped for, because they gave a window into a world that he could expand. But more often than not when he looked into eyes that had seen too much, done too much, had too many choices taken from them, the response was the same as the first time he asked: a blank look and a little shake of the head – or, worse, a quizzical frown, as if he was asking them to consider an entirely foreign concept. And what he couldn't find was a way to re-forge that connection to the most basic sense of self. Eventually, soul worn bare, Toby had to walk away before he drowned in other people's despair.

He went in search of what he had tried to help other people find: the things that make him feel – make him feel alive, feel human. All the travelling he had done up to this point in his life had been to the aftermath of war zones and natural disasters, so he started seeking out the beauty man created instead of destroyed. He backpacked through Greece and Italy, drinking his fill of architecture and art, then headed west. He skipped the Communist bloc because, whatever gems of beauty it may contain, he knew he wouldn't yet see past the drab greyness of oppression. He was in Salzburg during the summer music festival. Ticket prices for the official performances were far beyond his price range, but the whole city was filled with music, and it soaked through his skin and down to his bones as he took himself on a self-conducted, meandering tour of the city's churches, open air markets, opera houses, and gardens. He was somewhere in Spain when he realised that what stood out most in his mind from each of the places he visited was the food. He had quizzed people about ingredients and preparation, spices and combinations through at least three countries, and found something elemental and essential in the making and sharing of a meal that satisfied what he had been looking for in ways that the greatest paintings, literature, and operas did not. Toby decided he wanted to learn more. So he went to Paris.

-000-

The first thing Toby learnt about cooking was how expensive Parisian culinary schools are. He was fluent enough in French to navigate his way out of the maze of courses designed specifically for tourists, which increased the value-to-money ratio significantly, but the fact remained that he needed a job. He found one teaching English to an eclectic mix of businessmen, teenagers, and Algerian immigrants – which made him realise how much he had missed this interaction, this involvement in other people's lives. He had to scale back the teaching when he started his apprenticeships with master chefs, but he didn't give it up entirely until a few years after he qualified, when he finally felt he had learnt all he could from Paris, and moved on. He spent some time learning the major wine regions of France – their food as well as their wine, because one of the things he has learnt is his woeful ignorance of the proper pairings – then moved on to Belgium for the beer. Brussels suited him, and he settled there, working first as a sous chef at a restaurant with a growing reputation among the members of the European Parliament, before taking over the kitchen on the chef's retirement.

Which is the long story of how Toby now finds himself facing Eliot Spencer across a kitchen at three in the morning, and how he knows that his survival is about to be determined by the next words out of his mouth. And that if they are the wrong ones, they will be his last.

* * *

"You American?" Toby asks.

He doesn't know why – everything about the man in front of him screams _ex-military_, _dangerous_, and _trained killer_, but Toby can't put his finger on anything that specifically marks him as American rather than British, German, Russian, South African, Israeli or, really, from any part of the world where blue eyes are a possibility. Toby suppresses a wince as his ears hear what his mouth has said, because, seriously, knowing death is stalking him from three steps away, _that_ is the best he can come up with? He's pretty sure he's just crossed the final 't' on his own death warrant, when he spots the slightest hesitation and widening of the eyes from the man in front of him. Apparently Toby hadn't been the only one surprised by that question. Pressing whatever advantage he might have gained, Toby turns a little to scoop something from a dish beside him.

"Taste this," he continues, holding out the spoon. The reason Toby is in the kitchen at three o'clock in the morning when all the cleaning up from the night before and prep for the next day is done, is that he has been thinking it might be time move back to the United States and open his own restaurant there. The problem is that it has been so many years since he ate – let alone prepared – "American food" that he is not sure how to adjust his cooking to the American palette. He has tested out a few recipes on the restaurant's regular American customers, mostly from the Embassy, but, like him, many of them have been out of the country for a long time – and present the second challenge of already liking Toby's cooking. He can never be sure their compliments on his adaptations are because they taste like things Americans would want to order in a restaurant, or because they taste like things Toby made. As such, even in this most unsettling of situations, he is eager for fresh taste buds.

-000-

If Toby's first question surprised the intruder, the demand for taste-testing draws him to a physical halt. Toby continues to hold the spoon out at chest height, just inches from the other man. The blue eyes flick down to the spoon then back up to Toby, wary and just a little bit puzzled, and Toby feels his heart rate ramp up another notch. His pulse is so loud in his ears, he feels sure it must be echoing around the kitchen. The man reaches out to take the spoon, his other hand still uncomfortably close to the hilt of the wicked-looking knife, and Toby has a sudden, panicked and incongruous thought.

"Wait," he says. "Are you allergic to nuts?"

The eyes narrow, and Toby starts to babble.

"Because there are pistachios in there, and if you had an allergic reaction it could..." his eyes drop to the knife and he realises what he is saying. And to whom. "Oh."

Toby stops, clamping his lips together over any further fall of words, fingers relinquishing the spoon. He's not sure what he expected, but it is certainly not for the man to actually taste the food he is offering. It's not anything particularly fancy or strong in flavour – just a pistachio pesto he thinks might work in a couple of dishes – so he's surprised by the reaction it gets. He can actually see the moment the flavours penetrate the man's consciousness: there's a slight flare in the eyes that are still fixed on Toby – almost the same reaction as biting into a chili pepper would cause – followed by a pinching of the nostrils visible even through the balaclava on a sharp inhale that seemed to be trying to draw the flavour even deeper inside. But most surprising is the way the man savours it, taking his time in the same way Toby learnt to do with wine and beer tastings, but as if it was the food itself making him do that, rather than any advice or training he had received. He blinks as he swallows. His eyes are still on Toby, and Toby now sees when first perceives Toby as the man who created the pesto. Toby swallows against a suddenly dry mouth as he realises he is watching this man confront the choice between dehumanizing his targets and seeing himself as a monster. He wishes there was some way to tell him that, as horrifying as that second option is, the fact that it's there means he has not fallen all the way down. And that, given something to hold onto, he can crawl his way out of whatever darkness is swallowing him. There isn't – or, at least, Toby hasn't found it yet – so he waits, motionless and barely daring to breathe, knowing that there's at least one life in danger on either side of that line and praying that, somehow, they will both get to walk away from this.

The unknown man in front of him lets his empty hand fall loosely away from the knife and turns to lay the spoon very carefully on the counter beside him. He places his hands on either side of the spoon, pressing down with such force that Toby is very grateful for the solid construction of his kitchen. Toby is still tensed, expecting some kind of crisis to erupt in violence, when the man speaks.

"Lemon juice?" he asks.

Toby blinks, stunned.

"Ummm...no," he says, when he realises an answer is actually expected. "Zest."

Tony finds himself once again under the scrutiny of those blue eyes, but the quality of it has changed: they are looking now for a distraction from the internal struggle, a lifeline from the man whose life they had threatened only moments before. And Toby, thinking that maybe, just this once, for this one man, he actually has a lifeline to offer, throws it.

"It gives the taste and aroma without the acidity of the juice," he explains, and the man nods, giving the statement the kind of consideration more commonly reserved for breakthroughs in quantum physics.

-000-

The swish of the door leading through to the bar and the dining area startles them both. Toby had forgotten about the second man, and his reappearance makes every muscle in his body clench even tighter in fear. Glancing up at the kitchen clock, he is surprised to see that the encounter has lasted less than two minutes.

There's an exchange between the two men in a language Toby doesn't understand, but from the body language he suspect it is along the lines of "_Get it done and let's go", "Change of plans", _and_ "If you won't, I will." _The second man takes a threatening step towards Toby, drawing his weapon, and suddenly the first man is between them, bundling his colleague out the door they came in by. There is another heated exchange in the foreign language, then Toby hears the first man switch to English.

"Tell J I'm out, and that if he's going to finish this job, he needs to do it elsewhere."

Toby can't hear the response, or what follows, but he's starting to believe that he maybe isn't go to die tonight, and, suddenly, he wants a drink and he wants to sit down. The former is going to have to wait until his hands are steady enough for pouring, but there's a kitchen stool nearby. He hooks it over with a foot and collapses heavily onto it. He leans on the counter, staring at the bowl of pesto that seems, somehow, to have saved his life.

-000-

"You okay?"

Toby jumps back to his feet at the words, whirling around. He had thought both men had left; hadn't heard the quiet steps of his would-be assassin approaching again. The man falls back a step, raising his hands to show he isn't a threat. He hesitates for a moment, then, almost sheepishly pulls off his balaclava.

Toby stares into the face of the man who _could-should-would_ have killed him, and focuses on inhaling and exhaling. He subsides back onto the stool, which the man – kid, really, because Toby can see now that he's in his mid-twenties at the most – takes as permission to drop his hands and lean back against kitchen counter. He folds his arms across his chest and stares down at his boots. Toby's heart rate starts returning to something approaching normal – again – and he is able to study the other man as something other than a threat. The kid is hiding it well – he's obviously been thoroughly trained – but Toby knows he has to be freaking out...even if he hasn't fully realised it yet.

"I could use a drink," Toby says, standing. "You?"

The boy looks up, surprised, and Toby wonders why he stayed. But below the surprise and under the masks Toby can see the growing fear of what he sees in himself, and knows he stayed for the lifeline Toby offered earlier...for pesto and lemon zest. He nods, so Toby fetches two glasses and a bottle of scotch. Toby pours them each a double, and slides one of the glasses over. The kid unfolds his arms and approaches, but seems hesitant. He doesn't touch his glass as Toby lifts his own. There doesn't seem to be an appropriate toast for this situation, so Toby just raises his glass in a silent salute and takes a sip.

"My name's Eliot," the kid tells him, eyes focused on the glass he is turning between his fingers. Then, apparently making a conscious effort, he stills his hands and meets Toby's eyes. "Eliot Spencer," he elaborates, as if recognising he needs to offer Toby some show of trust in return for all that Toby is offering him.

Toby nods, accepting it.

"Well, Eliot," he says. "I'm Toby. Why don't you pull up that other chair? We'll have a drink and then I'll teach you how to make pesto."

He takes another sip as Eliot brings the second kitchen stool over to the counter and sits down. They drink for a while in silence. Eliot finally breaks it with the question Toby has been trying to answer for himself since he offered Eliot a drink instead of kicking him out of the kitchen.

"Why?"

Toby thinks of the man all those years ago who had first put words around the battle he knows Eliot is facing – _believing in his own humanity –_ and of all the people in between for whom he had nothing to offer. He thinks of what he has found for himself through cooking, and what, thanks to a bowl of pistachio pesto, he maybe has to give this time.

"You could have killed me and chose not to," Toby explains. "The least I can do, is offer you the same kind of second chance."

He sees Eliot's fingers tighten around the glass and knows that he has correctly read the fear. He reaches over and taps the counter next to Eliot's hands to make sure he has his attention.

"We all deserve at least one of those," he says. "Most of us need two or three."


	2. Chapter 2

_See Chapter 1 for disclaimers._

_Author's note: Thank you for reading - double thanks to those who left feedback on Chapter 1: I'm glad it worked better than I thought it might!_

_A couple of notes on the chronology as we move into Chapter 2: I tried (and failed) to put together a coherent timeline in my head for Eliot's work history that actually manages to match up with what we are told in the show. For the purposes of this story, assume it goes something along the lines of: U.S. Army, two private military contractors (mentioned in the French Connection Job), "working for his country" (mentioned in the Rundown Job, and for which I read "CIA" ..feel free to assume that the call in paragraph 2 that he couldn't turn down came from Vance), which somehow devolved into his working for Moreau (the Big Bang Job). This chapter falls fairly immediately after whatever that "worst thing" Eliot did. _

* * *

The second time Eliot Spencer appears seemingly out of nowhere in Toby's kitchen, it is at least daylight, and neither of his hands is lingering near any obvious weapon.

It's early in the morning, and Toby is alone in the kitchen, waiting for a couple of deliveries. This restaurant is his own: he made the move back to the States about a year after Eliot's impromptu apprenticeship with him in Brussels came to an end. The ending had been as sudden – although far less dramatic than – as the start. After three months of daily lessons covering everything from finding and selecting the best ingredients (or growing your own when suppliers prove unreliable), to slicing, dicing and julienning, and sautéing, blanching, roasting simmering, and flash-frying, Eliot had invited Toby to a meal he had prepared completely on his own, thanked him for everything he had done, and announced he wouldn't be showing up at the restaurant the next day. Toby hadn't pressed for an explanation, and Eliot hadn't offered anything more than that he'd received a call from an old friend about a job he couldn't turn down.

All of that was more than three years ago – and it has been almost two since Toby stopped expecting to hear from his unexpected protégé. He is curious, he has to admit. In those three months, he had seen Eliot rebuild a sense of his own humanity – to start to feel again, with all the painful self-knowledge that entailed. And Toby wonders sometimes if that beginning would be enough to withstand the assault of the life Eliot had returned to, or if it would simply make the next fall that much the harder. It's not a question he expected to ever have answered, and certainly not on this humid summer morning in South Carolina, when he is waiting on nothing less mundane than a delivery of salad greens and root vegetables.

-000-

Toby doesn't know what makes him look up from the inventory he is going over. There is no sound he can identify, and no sudden shadow blocking his light, but some change in the air tells him he is no longer alone. He turns and there, at the far end of the kitchen, where he shouldn't possibly have been able to get to without Toby noticing, is Eliot Spencer. Toby recognises him in an instant, despite the extra muscle he's packed on, the darker tan, and the new lines etched into his face. There are few signs left of the 'kid' Toby had reached out to three years earlier, and all too many of what the intervening years had involved. The eyes, though...Toby knows the eyes. They're not the detached, assessing instruments he recognised in his initial encounter with Eliot. This time, the gaze that meets his is one he knows from Eliot himself; from mornings in Brussels when Toby had arrived at the restaurant to find the kitchen gleaming with a cleanliness that made even the standard Toby held his staff to appear tawdry, half the day's prep done, and Eliot in the middle of it, eyes shadowed with sleeplessness and breaking around an internal slideshow he could not and would not share. So Toby does now what he always did then: tosses Eliot an apron and gives him a task to keep his hands busy and his thoughts, if not focused, at least structured.

"You remember the routine?" he asks, and Eliot, after a moment, nods.

"Good," Toby continues. "Today's menu is over there," he nods towards a chalkboard hanging near the entrance to the dining rom. "Why don't you get started on the breads?"

Eliot still doesn't say anything, but he ties on the apron, finds a cap to cover his hair, and then washes his hands and gets to work.

-000-

It is the pattern they follow for the next several months. Eliot doesn't speak more than necessary, and when he does it is always strictly related to the task at hand. The staff exchange curious looks behind his back, but seem to accept Toby's explanation that Eliot is a friend from Brussels who is helping out for a while. It helps that Eliot is a fast and efficient worker, makes no complaint when the less pleasant aspects of kitchen duty come his way, and never takes any share of the tips when he fills in for an absent bartender or busboy. He is the last one to leave at night, and is always waiting at the back door when Toby arrives in the morning. Toby tells him he doesn't have to wait outside, and offers him a key. Eliot gives him a guarded look and shakes his head, but the next morning Toby arrives to the smell of brewing coffee and baking bread. He makes no comment. He might worry about how few hours Eliot spends away from the restaurant, but thinks he understands that the activity provides not so much a distraction from the thoughts and memories churning just beneath the surface, but something for Eliot to hold onto as he navigates those waters. So, he keeps finding things for Eliot to do. The staff are disconcerted at first to find the same man washing dishes one day and designing the specials and going through the liquor inventory the next. The questions and murmurs die down, however, when Toby catches a cold that interferes with his senses of taste and smell, and Eliot is the one to identify and call him on the strange aromas emanating from some of the pots. Toby, when finally convinced that Eliot was right about him adding cumin rather than cloves to the sauce he was preparing, retires to his office with a box of tissues and the latest set of invoices, instructing the staff that nothing is to leave the kitchen until Eliot has tasted and approved it. Once the lunchtime rush dies down, this turns into a challenge to see who could stump Eliot by omitting or replacing one or more ingredients in the items they are preparing. Jaws start dropping as he identifies and corrects the fifth one presented to him by smell alone.

"It's very distinctive," he says, shrugging as he turns back to the peppers he is slicing. He doesn't mention the many reflective surfaces around the kitchen that enable him to keep an eye not just on the entrances and exits, but on what is happening in almost every corner of the kitchen. After all, it's not like he couldn't have picked out the missing spice just by smell, so what does it matter that he saw how many and which ones they used?

Toby, who has himself learnt the value of reflective surfaces from his time spent in the kitchen with Eliot, catches the tiniest smirk on Eliot's face from where he sits in his office, and sees it as the best sign yet that Eliot can find enough pieces of himself left from whatever precipitated this crisis to cobble together something – _someone_ – he can live with. But as those pieces start to fit into place, he also sees a growing restlessness in the younger man, and he worries about how many times this cycle can repeat, and at what cost to both Eliot and the rest of the world. As much as he can see the joy of creation that Eliot finds in cooking, and the meaning and purpose associated with it, Toby knows it's going to be about as effective as Elmer's Paste in a situation that calls for rubber cement if Eliot goes back to the life he was living before.

-000-

Toby broaches the subject with Eliot when Eliot once again prepares a farewell-and-thank-you dinner. At least this time Toby knows what to expect when he accepts the invitation.

"I know," Eliot says, lifting a brooding gaze to Toby's concerned one. "I've already put the word out that I'm not available for the kind of job I used to do."

Toby thinks about that. It sounds...too easy.

"But?" he asks.

Eliot huffs a snort that is two parts frustrated and one part resigned.

"But it's not that easy," he admits. "People are still calling."

Eliot stops, and the look he turns on Toby is shamefaced.

"I'm really good at what I do," he says. "And some of the jobs...they make it sound like the right thing, y'know? Do the bad thing, but for a good reason."

Toby feels a shiver run through him, knowing exactly how susceptible he would be – maybe has been – to that kind of logic.

"I can't anymore, though," Eliot continues. "Maybe there's ways of living with those choices so you don't lose yourself, but me...the bad acts tear me apart and all the good reasons do is blind me to what's happening. There ain't enough left that I can afford to lose more."

Toby nods. He sees the truth in that even as he wishes he could turn the sadness and loss he hears in Eliot's voice into recognition of the strength it takes to know that about oneself, and walk away.

"So, what are you going to do?" he asks.

Eliot smiles a little wryly.

"Well, some of my skills are more versatile than others," he says slowly. "I am, for example, really good at getting into or out of places when people don't really want me to."

Toby chews on this for a moment.

"You're going to be a thief?" he asks, frowning in some combination of disbelief and distaste, although he would be hard-pressed to identify the dominant emotion. He supposes _thief_ is at least a moral step or two up from _assassin_ as a career choice.

"Nope," Eliot flashes him a genuine grin. "A retrieval specialist. I'm going to steal things _back_. Got my first job lined up for tomorrow."

Toby has to laugh. But he knows Eliot is going to need something more than that to keep all the pieces glued together – the love and support that family and friends offer as some of the best rubber cement for the human soul...and that seem so startlingly absent from this man's life.

"Anytime you get bored," he offers, "my kitchen is open."

* * *

_Author's note: So, I know I stole the line about retrieval specialists stealing things back from someone...but I don't remember where I read it. Parker was explaining the difference between thieves and retrieval specialists to someone from Eliot's past...If you recognise it (or wrote it!), please let me know so that I can give credit where credit is due._


	3. Chapter 3

_See Chapter 1 for disclaimers._

_Author's note: You've probably already figured out the complex mathematics of this, but, just in case not, this is the final chapter and covers the third (and the half) time Eliot walks into Toby's kitchen. Thank you for reading!_

_This chapter picks up when the Leverage team makes the move to Portland at the beginning of Season 5._

* * *

The third time Eliot Spencer walks into Toby's kitchen, it is one of the teaching kitchens at the Northern Culinary School, and Toby is in the middle of a class. There's a knock at the door and the whole class, always easily distracted, immediately swivels to stare as it's pushed open. Eliot looked mildly disconcerted to find himself under the intense scrutiny of ten teenagers, most sporting assorted piercings and tattoos. Toby feels his own mouth dropping open in surprise, not just at the fact of Eliot's appearance, but that he actually _knocked. _He shakes it off as he sees Eliot raise an apologetic hand and start to retreat. Toby waves him inside. Eliot hesitates a moment, but then slips through the door and takes a seat at the back of the room, arms folded across his chest as he settles in to observe.

"Okay, guys, eyes front," Toby says to his class. "There's still fifteen minutes of class left, which is plenty of time to finish the reduction sauces you're working on, and get everything cleaned up. Anyone got any questions?"

Toby keeps his attention resolutely on his students for the remainder of class, as liberal with praise and encouragement as he is with questions and pointers – and with instructions about cleaning their equipment properly.

"Take care of your tools, and they'll take care of you," he reminds them as they cart their utensils to the industrial-size sinks lining two walls of the room.

But through it all, Toby sneaks glances at the silent observer at the back of the classroom. The change in Eliot is startling, going far beyond the longer hair (thought that _is_ a surprise) and the glasses he slides on to read the notes the kid nearest him is making on the day's recipe. That his day-to-day life still has its violent aspects is apparent in the bruise sitting high on one cheekbone and the scuffed knuckles that suggest a recent fight. But for the first time, when Toby looks into his eyes all he sees is Eliot looking back at him – not staring inward at something he can neither confront nor look away from, and not reflecting the ghosts of either of their pasts. Somewhere in the last six or seven years, Eliot has found a way to carry his past. It's not quite self-acceptance; Toby gets the sense that Eliot is protecting the world from what he knows lies within, but there is a confidence in his ability to control it that wasn't there before. Toby finds himself thinking in clichés about how _what doesn't kill us makes us stronger_, and _knowing yourself, you will win all battles_. He realizes with a sense of shock that part of him envies Eliot's clear-eyed honesty with himself, even as the rest of him breathes a sigh of relief that he has not been pushed into the extremities where that kind of self-examination can no longer be avoided.

-000-

The room finally empties of students, and Eliot approaches Toby, arm extending for a handshake. That's something else new; in their previous interactions they had, by unspoken mutual agreement, kept even the most casual contact to a minimum. Toby shakes Eliot's hand, but it feels unnatural, as if they are both acting a part.

"It's good to see you," Toby says, trying to force his way past that awkwardness. "Been a long time."

"Yeah," Eliot agrees. "Wouldn't have been if you didn't keep moving your restaurant."

Toby chuckles at that because the move to Portland is the only one he's made since he last saw Eliot, and, anyway, Eliot is far harder to keep track of. Not that Toby had tried; he may not have much practical experience on the other side of the legal line, but his instincts told him that tracking Eliot would only end badly for everyone involved.

"So you opened a school this time?" Eliot goes on.

Toby nods, and tells him about the "Second Chances" program he has for foster kids and kids with juvenile records.

"That's great," Eliot says, his eyes shining with warmth as if Toby had done a favour for him or a close friend. "There's a lot of kids out there who need something like that to hang on to. And if they learn even half of what you taught me..." he trails off, shrugging self-consciously.

"Well, you gave me the idea," Toby tells him. Eliot frowns, so he continues. "You found something in my kitchen you hadn't anywhere else...I figured that if it worked for you, it might for others, too."

Eliot nods.

"So, what have you been up to?" Toby asks – for the first time feeling that it might be a question Eliot could answer. "You look...happy." It's not quite the right word, but it's the closest Toby can come.

Eliot looks embarrassed, but in a good way.

"Been running with a different crowd," he says.

"Oh?" Toby prompts.

"Yeah," Eliot replies. "I think you'd like them...especially Nate, the guy who kind of put the team together."

He pauses, looking for a way to explain.

"We help people," he eventually tells Toby. "A thief, a hacker, a grafter, and, well, _me_, and he showed us ways to use what we know about getting around outside the law to help people when the good guys can't."

Toby stares at him.

"Let me get this straight," he says. "You work with a bunch of criminals – grown men –"

"And women," Eliot interrupts.

"- and women, _playing Robin Hood?_"

Toby can't help a chuckle escaping, both at the irony and at the mental image of Eliot Spencer as one of the Merry Men, but he sobers immediately when Eliot's only response to the teasing is a shrug, eyes everywhere except on Toby's.

"Hey," Toby says, voice serious again. "I'm not laughing because I think it's stupid. I'm glad you've found a way to put your talents to good use, and that you've found a good team to work with."

Eliot nods, and Toby continues his explanation.

"I laughed because I may have watched _Robin Hood: Men in Tights_ a few times too many with my niece and nephew over the summer, and that was what sprang into my mind when you described what your team does."

There's a smile twitching at the corners of Eliot's mouth now.

"That's a good movie," is all he says, but Toby reads the _apology accepted_ between the lines.

"So, what are you doing here in Portland?" Toby asks. "Working a job, or just looking up chefs of your acquaintance?"

"Both," Eliot says. "Looks like Portland is going to be the team's home base for a while."

Toby nods, but doesn't press when Eliot fails to offer more details.

"So, are you still cooking?" he asks.

"Whenever I can," Eliot replies.

"Well, if you don't have plans for the rest of the afternoon, I have a couple of recipes I need to test out for classes next week," Toby offers. "You want to help?"

"I'm free," Eliot says. "What do we need?"

* * *

Three weeks later, Eliot walks into Toby's kitchen to find him sitting at the table with makeshift ice packs pressed to his eye and to his ribs.

"Let me see," he says, and before Toby can marshal any objection, experienced fingers are probing the swelling around his eye and checking for tell-tale signs of broken ribs.

"What happened?" Eliot asks, when he's satisfied that there's little immediate danger from Toby's injuries.

Toby tells him about Lampard and what he's doing with the culinary school, and about the drug deal Toby had stumbled in on. He sees the anger that wells up in Eliot as he describes being beaten and thrown out of his own school, and sees him tamp it back down.

Eliot sits in silence for a moment, apparently contemplating his hands.

"We should get you checked out," he says, looking up. "Just in case there's internal bleeding or something. And then I think it's time you met Nate."

-000-

Hours later, Toby sits in the Brewpub, riding a comfortable wave of painkillers and Nate Ford's assurance that he and the rest of Eliot's team would look into Lampard's activities and get Toby his school back. He suspects it would be wiser not to inquire into precisely how they are going to achieve this. He knows Eliot wants to help as some sort of repayment for what he feels he owes Toby, and Toby is far too wise to throw that gratitude back in his face just because a couple of legal lines might be crossed.

He's waiting now for Eliot, who drove him here and was about to drive him home, when some sort of crisis erupted in the brewery requiring Eliot's immediate presence. Toby waved him off to go deal with it: as long as the painkillers are floating around his bloodstream, he's not terribly picky about where he spends the next hour.

He's surprised, however, when Nate Ford slides back into the chair opposite him, placing a fresh cup of coffee in front of Toby.

"It would be whiskey," Nate says, "but Eliot can be pretty fierce on the subject of mixing alcohol and painkillers when he's not the one doing it."

Toby smiles a little at that.

"Coffee's fine," he says. "Thank you."

He feels the weight of Nate's gaze stay on him as he lifts the mug to his lips and takes a sip.

"He told me what you did for him," Nate says as Toby sets the mug back down. "Said you taught him everything there was about the art of food...that you stopped him from falling all the way down."

"Oh," Toby says. He's sure he used to be more eloquent, but Nate just smiles.

"I wanted to thank you," he says. "For Eliot. For myself and the rest of our team, and everyone else he's passed that gift on to."

Toby blinks. It's been almost ten years since he first met Eliot and he's slightly ashamed to admit that in all that time he hasn't thought that Eliot might take the lifeline he had thrown him and pass it on to others.

Nate smirks a little, obviously reading the thoughts crossing Toby's face.

"Well," he says, standing, "I'll go see if I dig him out from whatever he's embroiled himself in back there so he can take you home before those pills wear off."

"Mr. Ford," Toby stops him. "I rather got the impression that you played your own part in stopping that fall."

He looks up, meeting the enquiring gaze the other man has turned on him, carefully blank of either confirmation or denial.

"I gave him a rope," Toby says, wishing he was having this conversation with a clearer head and a better grasp on his metaphors, "but he can't climb all the way out. And ropes fray."

He pauses, seeing understanding start to dawn on Nate's face, but decides he needs to spell it out, just to be safe.

"So, please, don't let go until you're sure he has something else to hold on to – and, preferably, that someone else has a hold of him."

For just a moment, Nate goes so still that it is almost a flinch, and Toby wonders what nerve he struck. It passes in a second, however, and Nate smiles.

"I won't," he says, a promise passed between two men responsible for saving the same life. "I'm going to go and get Eliot now."

Toby nods, drifting a little further into the painkiller haze until Eliot appears in front of him...or maybe beside him, because they seem to be in the car now, and what was in those drugs they had given him at the hospital? He remembers, suddenly, a thought he had when Nate first pulled Eliot aside for a tête-à-tête during their meeting.

"Have you thought about doing something with the menu?" he asks Eliot.

"Huh?" Eliot asks, attention mainly on the road.

"The Brewpub," Toby elaborates. "It's a good little restaurant, but the menu could use a bit more imagination."

Eliot snorts beside him, muttering something about anchovies and pineapple. Toby doesn't worry about that. The seed's been planted, and he trusts Eliot to figure out what to do with the idea.

THE END


	4. Surprise Chapter 4

_Author's note:_

_Surprise! A fourth chapter! I didn't know this story had one, but Jinxcat21 wrote "I just wish you had added another little bit for the end, either from Nate watching Eliot at the end of the knife fight or Toby after Eliot sees him off later" and that made __me__ wish that I had added another little bit...and then there was a rainy Monday night that was just perfect for story writing...and then a fourth chapter happened._

_Kind of. _

_It doesn't really fit with the first three in the sense that this one is written from Nate's point of view rather than Toby's. I had pretty much plumbed the depths of what I wanted to do with Toby's introspection already, but Nate is __always__ thinking ... and I liked the knife fight suggestion. It's fairly short, but I hope it satisfies any lingering feelings that the story wasn't quite finished._

* * *

Nate has walked into a lot of Eliot's kitchens over the years. Technically, most of them had belonged to other people – Nate included – but it didn't seem to take Eliot more than the preparation of one meal to make the space his own. Nate's not surprised, therefore, to find the restaurant kitchen feels familiar when the conversation he is listening to over the comms leads him there, away from Sophie's chef-hugging acting students, in search of Eliot. And it's not just because of the neatly trussed row of thugs laid out head-to-tail in one corner – although that is a sight he's seen in kitchens Eliot has commandeered for various cons before. Nate steps round the outermost thug's feet, more concerned by the scene in front of him, where Eliot has Rampone backed up against a wall, knife at his neck and not held entirely steady.

"Not only did you and Lampard ruin my friend Toby's life, but you ruined the lives of the kids he was trying to help," Eliot is saying as Nate enters.

It's an expansion on Eliot's earlier statement – "_You hurt my friend, Rampone"_ – that had drawn Nate towards the kitchen. Nate knows from Sophie what happened just a few months previously when Eliot had Victor Dubenich at the other end of a gun barrel ... and what probably would have happened had Sophie not been with him.

_"I'm thinking about saving my friend some trouble."_

On the long list of things for which Nate is grateful to Sophie Devereaux, the way she pulled Eliot back that day ranks high. She had not only forced Eliot to consider the full burden of consequences he would carry if he pulled that trigger, but had given Nate the opportunity to confront his own choice when he had both Latimer and Dubenich at his mercy at the dam.

Nate can see the parallels in Eliot's mind between that situation and this – between Nate and Toby, and between Dubenich and Rampone ... and maybe Nate and Eliot, and Jimmy Ford and Toby. Nate hopes that his presence can remind Eliot of the choices they each made before, and of why he needs to make the right choice again here.

_"I gave him a rope," Nate's conversation with Toby echoes through his mind, "but he can't climb all the way out. And ropes fray."_

Nate can feel the sharp teeth of Eliot's anger sawing at that rope while he is still several steps away.

"Eliot - Not worth it," Nate reminds him as he approaches. "Give him to the cops."

Eliot doesn't respond, not even a flicker of expression across his face to suggest he heard.

"Call off your dog," Rampone demands of Nate, his tough-guy image forever ruined by the tremor in his voice. "He's crazy."

Nate smirks a little, wondering why people assume he is able to control Eliot. Even the team seems to labour under this misapprehension at times and it never ceases to amaze Nate. He is very aware – and is sure Eliot is, too – that there is very little he could actually do to stop Eliot in most situations. Whatever control he has is limited to what Eliot cedes to him voluntarily. Still, it is a misperception that has served them both well at times, and neither Nate not Eliot is in a hurry to disabuse anyone of the notion.

"Crazy?" he hears Eliot say now. "I'm gonna cut your freaking head off and serve it on a platter."

It says a lot about Nate's life and work that these words immediately calm his worries. Eliot Spencer making dramatic threats is just that: dramatic, and maybe adding a little spit and polish to his reputation. Eliot Spencer in killing mode is ruthlessly efficient, not wasting words on someone who won't be left to tell the story. Nate is careful, however, to keep any sign of his inner relaxation off his face – he has his own part to play in this drama, and he knows far better than to ruin the artistry of the scene.

"That's enough, Eliot," he says, giving Eliot the excuse he needs to step away.

There is one last flurry of activity as Rampone launches a fist at Eliot. Eliot traps the fist, and Nate takes great pleasure in sending one of his own flying into Rampone's face. Rampone drops, unconscious, and Eliot watches, impassive. Nate looks at the younger man, dishevelled from the fight and bleeding from a cut on his arm, but with the clear conscience of another battle won against the violence within him. He feels the urge to say to Eliot, as he once had to a six-year-old Sam avoiding a playground fight, _You made good choices today;_ _I'm proud of you. _But they are thieves and conmen, and everything is done with misdirection and in code.

"Serve his - his head on a platter, huh?" Nate says instead. _(You made good choices.)_

"Was it too much?" Eliot asks, an actor looking for pointers to improve his next performance. _(Strayed kind of close to the edge on this one.)_

"No, actually, I liked it," Nate says, as they head out to join the rest of the team. _(I'm proud of you.)_

* * *

THE END (again...probably...unless someone else has another brilliant suggestion).

* * *

_Dialogue from The French Connection Job and from The Last Dam Job was once again made possible by the work WhenDarknessFalls has done in Leverage Seriously! - a collection of Leverage Transcripts derived from the closed captions available online and formatted into transcript form, then validated against the aired episode (available at leverage. whendarknessfalls. net )._


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